Writers – PLEASE!!!

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As authors and writers we spend a lot of time making sure our babies are ready to face the world (though I can think of at least one person who likes to double-check my work before it even hits the Reader’s Filter on LJ).

Why aren’t we doing the same with our webpages? Our MySpace pages? Our Facebook sites?

I am tired of hitting author’s sits where the coding is flat out wrong (or at least wrong for browsers that render pages correctly – IE I’m looking at you), the pictures are huge, there is sound (often blaring), and the readability is non-existent. If I want my site to be read, I should make the background not harsh on the eyes, and the text a manageable size. I’m sure I’ve achieved that with my main site as well as the duck. I’ve left the stupid coding layout pages on MySpace alone because none of them look good.

I show you this page

And this one

(Okay, I ‘m just picking on Ms. Black because she seemed so intent on sticking with the same “theme” throughout her pages.)

Guys – especially horror authors – I know we’re supposed to be s00pr spokie with out black and red and purple, but Jeebus in a side car, how are we supposed to get people to read us if our pages hurt the eyes? They hurt my eyes, and I’m fairly young. I’ve been reading off a screen since high school.

Personally, I take great pains to make sure what I put out to be read on a screen is in large enough print and can be adjusted to ease. When someone lets me know something is hard on them, I actually take a little time to address it. I have a lot of older readers (stop throwing things, PJ, I wasn’t talking about *you*) and lots more younger readers (see, here you are!) that help when it comes to that. Am I pandering to a crowd? You bet. I want this crowd to never stop reading, but it’s more important to get them and others to start.

I get that not everyone is skilled at webpage development, but it should be pretty simple to differentiate what works and what just you like. If you’re going to do your own page, take a little time to did it right. There are lots of website that talk about basic design and a great one thats talk about what looks like crap.

I can’t access the IOHP site right now, but does anyone know if there is a Web Design 101 page up there, and if there isn’t, maybe there should be? (Server Change – nevermind).